As soon as I moved, the sorcerer hit me with a lightning spell. My ward blocked most of it, but I was surprised that he’d fired so quickly. He was quite a bit stronger than I’d expected.
Don’t get cocky, idiot! There was a reason that I worried each time I fought. If I lost, my opponent would enslave me for the rest of my life, and I couldn’t be sure how strong the opposition was until I’d committed myself. I only took this risk because I needed to get stronger quickly.
During the trip down the concourse, I’d worked my anger up real good, and I had plenty of power for my attack spells. I yelled, “HOLARTHON, ELBO ASSOMME!”
My stunning spell shattered his protective wall. He staggered backward, moaning and writhing.
I hated being ambushed, so I felt a bit guilty for doing that to him.
Uh oh, I realized too late that he’d been faking his pain. His hand extended toward me, and he yelled, in the guttural language of sorcerers. Yellow lightning blasted past my protection and hit me full in the chest.
I’d braced myself, but I’d also let my ward weaken through inattention. Oh, dammit!
Searing agony gripped me, soaking into my bones. He’d obviously poured a huge amount of frustration into the spell. I staggered behind the empty agent’s desk to get a little protection.
Laura stood nearby, her face pale with worry, but there was nothing she could do. At least, she could watch the fight. For Christina and the public, the sorcerer and I were invisible.
I shook off the pain after a few seconds, and reengaged.
When the sorcerer saw me shake off his spell, he juked around the rows of empty seats near us, as though trying to get away. Laura circled behind him, though, to partially block his escape. She couldn’t fight him, but she could stand in his path.
He climbed over a row of seats.
“Wakonda!” A fireball from my right hand shot toward the sorcerer, splattered against his ward, and then part of my magic flowed through. His clothes and short curly hair burned. He screamed and rolled on the ground.
This was my chance to finish him off. I rushed forward.
He’d hardly smothered the flames out when I bent over to punch him. He outweighed me, but my arms were strong. After a half-dozen whacks to the head, he rolled toward me and kicked me over.
I took two vicious elbow shots to my left temple that left me woozy and panting on my back.
He staggered to his feet and pulled one foot back for a kick to my head.
At the last second, though, I twisted myself forward until my head was out of danger. His foot’s momentum carried it past me. The asshole was stretched out, his legs split apart right above me. I rolled to the side, and jammed my elbow into his crotch.
As he screamed and bent over, I bounced to my feet. Without pausing, I gave him a roundhouse kick to the head.
The sorcerer laid out on the floor, writhing, and between screams, he yelled, “Enough! I give up.”
That’s when we became visible to everyone. I rushed over and sat next to him blocking any view of him by spreading out my coat over the seat closest to his torso.
To avoid any awkward questions from passersby, Laura healed his bloody and bruised cheek due to my last kick.
After she finished patching him up, I hugged and kissed her.
“Congratulations!” she said. “You had me worried a couple of times, particularly when he caught you off-guard.”
I smiled back at her. “It’s harder to watch than to do, isn’t it?”
She nodded emphatically.
Christina ran up to me and put her arms around me. “I knew when you vanished what was happening. I’m relieved you won.”
I gave her a hug, noting her vocabulary and wondering just how much longer I would win at Scrabble. I concentrated on my new slave, “Where were you headed?”
“A slayers council meeting in Oakland.”
After I took all his magical power, I called Diana.
“Damn! I hated waiting to hear from you,” she said. “Maybe I was wrong about letting you leave the sanctuary. Are you safe now?”
“Absolutely,” I replied.
“I know you have to make your connection,” Diana said. “You can tell me later how the fight went. Send him on the next flight to Denver. We’ll meet him at DIA.”
“Yes, sir!” I replied.
Diana and I continued strategizing on what to do with the latest slave while Laura checked us in on the next leg of our trip. She also found a flight leaving soon for Denver, and paid for the ticket. I gave the flight details to Diana.
“We’ve got to board our flight,” I told our Supreme Leader.
“Fine,” she said. “No more incidents, please. Stay low-key.”
I laughed. “I’m not exactly looking for those guys, but I need more victories. I don’t pass these assholes up when they happen by. Sorcerers seem to be everywhere these days. We’ll call you when we get to Eureka.”
Laura, Christina, and I sat in the back of the plane to Eureka. No one sat close, and the engine roar was loud. We could talk without anyone being able to overhear us. Christina entertained herself with a word game on a tablet. The kid was always training, determined to beat me at Scrabble.
Laura asked me, “Although that seemed like a chance encounter, do you think we might’ve been careless by travelling under our own names? Lots of people can access our plane reservations.”
I’d considered that risk, but we didn’t have much choice for long-distance trips. “We can’t fly under aliases, that’s a Federal crime. The last time I tried to sneak around, I almost got caught.”
She sighed. “If we weren’t in such a hurry, we could’ve driven here in two days.”
The clouds were thick along the coast, and all I could see were occasional blobs of green forest below us. Since I couldn’t admire the scenery, I pondered our travel problem.
“We can be tracked easily,” I said. “You know, even without tickets, the sorcerers could probably find us through our credit cards.”
Laura nodded. “But nobody can find you with an anonymous gift card. When we touch down, we can ask Diana how to get those.”
After we landed, I called Diana and asked her how we could go incognito.
“Your expenses are covered for two weeks at the resort. Before the end of your stay there, I’ll send gift cards to Ellen for you both. Pay cash for the cab ride from the airport to the harbor. The boat trip is already paid for. And then forget this world for two weeks. Have a wonderful vacation.”
We had no trouble finding the boat, and the water was mellow enough for a relaxing cruise south along the coast. What gorgeous country. The sky was cloudy above, but we could see for miles under the white ceiling.
Deep green forests ran down from the hills to rocky headlands perched above the ocean. Occasionally, we’d pass an empty beach, but according to our captain, most of the coastline here was made up of sheer cliffs. No roads.
I loved watching the gently rolling waves slide under our boat, rise, and then crash against the rocky coastline. Above steep cliffs, the land tended to flatten out for a few hundred yards before rising again in steep hills hidden by lush forest. Close to the sea, many of the headlands were covered with broad patches of orange. I asked the old captain why.
“California poppies. The open land along the coast is ablaze this time of year. From out this far, they look solid orange, but when you get up close, you’ll see lots of variations, yellow to almost red. Quite a sight.”
That was the understatement of the day.
Luckily, Christina and Laura seemed to enjoy the ride as much as I did. We would all constantly point out some new wonder, including a gray whale that broke the surface a few hundred yards away and spouted water high in the air. We took lots of pictures.
After hours of cruising, we reached the resort, named Elysium because that was apparently the Greek word for heaven. It was actually a small town perched on a long headland a hundred feet above the Pacific.
The captain pointed at several buildings gathered together on the north edge of town. “That’s the resort itself. Very exclusive. You’ll have a wonderful time. Everyone I bring here raves about the place on the way back to civilization.”
The largest building was a white, three-story inn with a dark green roof. Large green meadows enclosed by a tall fence surrounded it. Diana had said the place was secure, and they had to have wards protecting the resort.
“How did they get here, out in the middle of nowhere?” Laura asked.
“It’s an old immigrant colony. Hundreds of pagans who worshipped the old Greek gods were driven out of Europe. They arrived here back before California was a state and sited this town as far from civilization as they could get.”
The rocky face of the headland seemed unrelenting. When I asked the captain where we would disembark, he just smiled and pointed south.
A few minutes later, we passed a promontory jutting out into the sea. Then a deep cove came into view. It was only a quarter-mile wide at its mouth, and it extended back a good mile to a thickly vegetated valley. Giant blocks of rock created a breakwater, and the captain maneuvered into an entrance about fifty feet wide. Inside the bay, the water was perfectly smooth.
The captain headed his boat to a dock on the north side of the cove. After he helped us disembark and handed over our luggage, he waved goodbye. “See you in two weeks! And don’t try to hide in the forest to avoid coming back. They always find you.”
A husky teenager with an olive complexion and wavy black hair grabbed our luggage. He wore a blue blazer with a decal showing a Greek goddess standing in front of a forest. “Welcome to Elysium. I’m Teddy. Right this way, please.”
We followed him to a large SUV.
“How did you get that rig here?” I asked.
He grinned. “The same way you came, but on a bigger boat. Almost everything comes by sea.”
A narrow, rocky road wound its way up the hillside to reach the headland. The inn was constructed in the classic Greek style with dozens of round columns surrounding the structure. White walls and plenty of windows filled the space in between the columns.
“Is that marble?” I asked.
Teddy shook his head. “It’s all redwood. Painted to look like stone. Too many earthquakes here, so we can’t build with stone.”
We followed him and our luggage into the airy, bright lobby. It reminded me of an old European hotel from the movies. Tapestries depicting ancient Greek history covered the walls. Christina ran up to one showing Narcissus admiring himself in a pool of water.
Most of the space was filled with a conversation area with comfortable chairs and low tables. In the room’s center, a large marble fountain gurgled. Statues of nymphs and satyrs played in the pool of water. Naturally, Christina headed there next.
“This isn’t home,” I reminded her, “don’t jump in.”
A twenty-something black-haired woman with a slim figure greeted us with a broad smile from behind a marble counter. “It’s perfectly fine if she does. We dote on our children.”
Laura beamed.
“Welcome,” the tall woman said. “I am your hostess, Anie Papandreou. You are already checked in. Here are your keys.”
She handed us old-style room keys with a brass medallion attached with a man’s face carved into it. “You are in the Socrates Suite on the second floor. You will find a tray of olives and other delicacies there along with a bottle of a sparkling mineral water to help you recover from your journey. Happy hour begins at four o’clock on the west deck, where we serve complementary drinks and hot appetizers. If you need anything else, do not hesitate to ask. We pride ourselves on pleasing our guests.”
Our suite was large and comfortably furnished. French glass doors opened to a balcony that faced south overlooking the cove and the coast beyond. I could see for many miles to the south, and only signs of civilization were in this little community. Out in the water, a mile offshore, a California gray whale broke the surface. I mentioned it to Laura and Christina, and we watched him blow a half-dozen times before disappearing.
The three of us left our bags unopened and wandered out of the building down a broad path that led to a gazebo near the edge of the headland. We sat in comfort, watching the waves crash against the rocks below us.
Christina became entranced with a large flock of gray and white California quail and followed them away from the cliff. Laura and I kept a close eye on her to make sure she didn’t wander anywhere near the edge.
“We’re alone now,” Laura reminded me. “How did you spot that sorcerer in the airport?”
I unbuttoned the top button of my shirt and pulled out the old, gold amulet Gill had given me. At that moment, it was a faded bronze disk an inch in diameter. She’d seen it many times, and asked me about it, but I’d deflected her questions. Now, I needed to explain everything.
As I did, it turned into a gold amulet, two inches in diameter. It looked to be freshly minted. One side contained a man’s head, and the other side showed words in some long-forgotten language.
She listened with a frown as I told her how Gill had sworn me to secrecy.
When I took it off to hand to her, it changed again to the dull bronze disk half as large. The man’s image and the words had worn down so much that they were unrecognizable.
“Basically,” I said, “if a sorcerer figures out this exists, or a less virtuous witch, he’ll do anything to take it from me. Because it doesn’t look like much, it has remained secret for eight thousand years.”
Laura rubbed it between her fingers. “What does it do?”
“It reads the feelings of any sentient being nearby—even when they are behind a ward or another barrier. If it senses hostility to me, or to witches in general, it warns me.”
“This charm told you about the sorcerer in the airport?”
I nodded. “And it’s always working, even when I’m not paying attention. It even protects me while I’m sleeping.”
“How does it warn you?”
I rubbed the part of my chest the old relic usually covered. “If something hostile approaches that I haven’t already noticed, it gives me an electric shock. It really hurts, too.”
That seemed to cheer her up. “Good. You should’ve told me right away, as soon as you got back from France. I thought we were soulmates.”
“We are.” I said as compassionately as I could. “Gill didn’t want me to tell anyone, ever. His wife kept the secret from him for over a decade, so I’m a saint by comparison to Marie. Nobody else can know, not even Tess.”
Laura’s frown didn’t disappear, but I answered all her questions about how it’d helped me. Then I replaced the amulet around my neck and took her hand. We walked to collect her daughter and then return to the inn. Laura didn’t speak to me, but she didn’t pull away either. That was the best I could hope for.
Chapter 5
Monday, April 22nd
FOR TWO WEEKS, WE lived in isolated bliss. I forgot about Boulder and magic, except that I meditated every day in the gazebo overlooking the ocean. For some reason, I could focus there better than anywhere else I’d tried.
It was a perfect vacation, but the time passed too quickly.
On Monday afternoon, we found ourselves at the dock boarding the boat back to Eureka.
The captain grinned at me. “Did you enjoy your stay?”
I couldn’t help but grin back. “The best honeymoon ever! Not a care in the world. They have their own beach. We spent hours among redwoods that have never seen an ax or a saw. The whale-watching trips were a blast. Plus, we spent hours every day hiking along the headlands. It really is heaven.”
After we were underway, he said to me, “I don’t want to upset you or your family, but someone has been trying to find you.”
That sent a surge of adrenaline through me. “Who?”
He shrugged. “Man said his name was Hank Williams, but I doubt it. He’s a tall, young, burly guy, built like a weightlifter.
Most of his face was hidden by a thick, dark-brown beard. When I returned from dropping you off, he asked if I’d taken you somewhere. I told him that I only talk about my customers to cops holding warrants in their hands. He scowled at me and left. Since that day, though, one of the other boat captains, a real nasty guy, has been hanging around my slip a lot more than usual.”
“Thanks for the warning. I can’t imagine why they’d be looking for me.”
Which wasn’t the least bit true. It sounded like Sitka had followed us as far as Eureka, but that was two weeks ago. Surely, he’d given up searching by now.
-o-o-o-
DESPITE THE UNWELCOME NEWS, I enjoyed the cruise back to town as much as I did every ride on the ocean. All three of us relaxed and absorbed all the sights and the smell of the sea. We spotted several seals and sea otters, and a small flock of noisy gulls followed us the entire way.
As we approached the harbor, though, the captain pointed to a black boat near the entrance.
“That boat is owned by the other captain I mentioned.” He pulled out a pair of binoculars and checked. “Yeah, his passenger is the burly guy who asked me about you two weeks ago.”
I borrowed the field glasses from our captain and got a good look at both men. They seemed to be waiting near the mouth of the harbor to waylay us. My camera included a zoom lens, and I took several photos of them.
“Is there somewhere else you can take us besides the harbor?” I asked. “I’d prefer to avoid any confrontation.”
“Sure, lots of places. I can drop you off on the waterfront. If you call the local cab company now, you could arrange for a cab to be waiting.”
He gave me the name of a restaurant with a dock, and I called the cab company to arrange for a driver to meet us there.
Christina loved the idea of us fooling the men chasing us, but Laura’s face was pale.
After I hung up, the captain asked, “Ready for a change in course?”
We held on to a handrail. “Ready.”
Vengeance (The Sorcerers' Scourge Series Book 3) Page 4